What is a Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS)?

A dialed number identification service (DNIS) is a service offered by telecom providers to their commercial customers, letting them know what number was dialed for each incoming call. The data is sent as a series of touch tone digits along with the call and interpreted at the destination by the PBX. From there, the DNIS information may be sent to an interactive voice response (IVR) system for further use, such as call routing.

Contact centers, which often have multiple lines coming in, are large consumers of dialed number identification services. The need for multiple lines is driven by business requirements. For example, an auto insurer likely has different numbers to call for sales, service, and claims, but they all end up at the same contact center.

The company may want to play different greetings for the three numbers, offer different IVR menu options, and route the calls to three different agent groups. With the dialed number identification service information, the IVR can accomplish all of this. The result is a positive impact on customer experience, as callers will be routed to the group of agents best suited to meet their needs.

Using different dialed number identification services is also a way to measure the success of marketing efforts. For example, if a company runs infomercials on different TV stations and at different times of day, they could use unique 800 numbers for each of the ads. Then, on the back end, the marketing team can conduct analysis, based on DNIS information, to determine which of the ads drove the most calls and had the highest conversion rates. This allows businesses to maximize the effectiveness of their marketing spend.

In today's increasingly complex contact centers, dialed number identification service (DNIS) information is essential to optimizing the power of automation tools.